A tank going towards an outpost blows a strip through the mine field and rushes in to attack, this minefield notices it has gotten blown and rushes to patch the hole at the same time.
One thing that the US has striven for was a smart minefield. with the ability to turn itself off when not needed, and more imprtantly, able to patch itself when blown. Without the need for antipersonel mines that could become a liability later.
:: Self-Healing Minefield :: SHM Concept Demo
Overview
The Self-Healing Minefield is an antitank landmine system that does not rely on antipersonnel landmines for dismounted breach protection. Instead the Self-Healing Minefield employs a novel breach response mechanism that can determine both mounted and dismounted enemy assaults on the minefield and respond to maintain obstacle integrity. Contrary to the current mixed minefield systems (Volcano, RAAM/ADAM, and Gator) which require antipersonnel landmines co-located with an antitank minefield to complicate dismounted breaching of the antitank minefield, the Self-Healing Minefield employs intelligent, mobile antitank mines alone to defeat all enemy breaching.
Concept
The Self-Healing Minefield system was designed to achieve an increased resistance to dismounted and mounted breaching by adding a novel dimension to the minefield. Instead of a static complex obstacle, the Self-Healing Minefield is an intelligent, dynamic obstacle that responds to an enemy breaching attempt by physically reorganizing. The Self-Healing Minefield consists of surface scattered antitank mines that can detect an enemy attack of the minefield and respond autonomously, by having a fraction of the mines move to heal the breach. Since the minefield is no longer a static obstacle, an open breach cannot be maintained. The Self-Healing Minefield forces the enemy to attack the minefield and deplete the antitank mines surrounding the breaching lane by either repeated assaults or a wide area breach/clearance. In either case the enemy has increased their exposure to covering fires when compared to the current mixed system minefield. An ongoing modeling effort indicated that a self-healing minefield provided greatly increased military effectiveness of the obstacle.
Prototype System Performance
In order to achieve the level of robustness necessary to defeat or substantially complicate an enemy breach attempt, the mines within the prototype Self-Healing Minefield were designed to:
- Autonomously identify and respond to an enemy attack within 10 seconds of a breach attempt or vulnerability in the minefield.
- Resist multiple breach attempts.
- Be mobile in all environmental conditions and terrain where enemy tanks can operate.
- Rapidly assemble a scalable communication network and self-geolocate in 5-15 minutes.
- Have a robust mine-to-mine communication resistant to enemy countermeasures.
- Provide a compact multi-hopping system.
- Be of two sided mobility or single sided mobility with self-righting.
- Provide directional control and repeatability.
- Have a Non-GPS based geolocation with 1 meter location accuracy.
- Maintain or reduce overall volume as compared to currently fielded scatterable antivehicle mines.
DEMO
Self-Healing Minefield Concept Demonstration
Antitank minefield established using only surface scatterable antitank mines.
Mine-to-mine communication is established. Autonomous monitoring begins.
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Enemy breaches minefield.
Minefield detects breach and determines the best course of action.
Individual mines respond to breaching attempt by moving to fill in the open lane.
Minefield network is re-established.
Now it’s your move. Select one of the keywords below to learn more about Self-Healing Minefields and how they work.
Seriously cool concept and I hope they get it working in the battlefield. It would save a lot of lives.
Tags: Interesting
